Dirty English infects beautiful Italian

It sounds like some obscene liaison between Russell Brand and Sophia Loren, but it's all about language really.

According to this story in The Daily Telegraph, language purists in Italy have had enough of English words being thrown into daily conversation and have said no to Anglitaliano. Words and phrases such as weekend, know how and cool have appeared on a list of "ugly English words" and are being derided as unpleasant and affected.

The French have usually been the ones who complain about this sort of thing, as this post from March illustrates, but it all seems part of a wider response among people in all societies who worry about language change and losing the "purity" of their language, be it Italians appalled at English words or English speakers sick of American phrases.

Are we bovvered?

A recent Telegraph report provoked 120 comments online. The views expressed ranged from angry to sarcastic and incredulous. The intensity of feeling was surprising and included harsh lexis such as: ‘nasty’ ‘scum’ ‘insanity’ ‘pompous little Hitlers’ ‘petty minded Fascists’ ‘halfwits’….. the list goes on.

So what stirred up such a reaction? In an attempt to be avoid offence and to be sensitive to individuals and certain groups Chichester District Council has written a 7 page booklet as a guide for their employees. The term ‘general public’ is promoted as a positive alternative to ‘Man on the street’ to avoid offending women.
See: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2619171/Man-on-the-street-is-offensive-to-women.html

How angry does this make you feel? Or does this not bother you at all?

Possibly the comments received online by the Telegraph are more interesting to debate than the leaflet alone. Here we see Political Correctness described as ‘highly offensive’ and ‘a sickness.’ The negative sexual connotations of ‘woman on the street’ are highlighted in more than one comment. Some historical context is given for the usage of ‘man’.

As English Language students you need to form views and express opinions on language issues both in Paper 5 and Paper 6. Exploring the comments expressed by ‘the man on the street’ in response to articles about language issues may help you to form a view. It is not just your teachers who get excited and passionate about language debates!

(Unfortunately my lack of technical ability prevented me from including a google image of a 'man on the street' that would definitely cause offence here in Chichester!)

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Readpeace.com Very Vocabulary Podcast

Wake up & smell the coffee part 1

Getting Echo Wall ready for it’s test screening at Fort William bouldering wall last week kept us up until some silly hours last week. But we got there. The screening got us pretty excited but also gave us a long list of tweaks to make over the coming couple of weeks. Thanks so much to everyone that came and for the great encouragement and feedback. By the way, the recipe for Claire’s gingerbread is here. So far it's powered the current hardest climb in Scotland in bouldering, mixed climbing, sport climbing and trad climbing. The ultimate sports fuel? Let me tell you this pattern ain't no accident.

After three and a half weeks of no training to work on the film I couldn’t handle it any more and went on an eight day training bender, cutting the editing down to 12 hours a day to make room. It felt so good! Everything hurts right now. Some sleep would help, but in some ways I think the rest has done me some good. My body feels quite strong right now if a bit heavy – ready for some bouldering. On a visit to Glasgow I stopped by at Dumbarton and Glasgow climbing wall for a couple of references and 1-5-8 on Glasgow’s campus board was feeling pretty easy. I had been getting the fear because I have yet to succeed on 1-4-7 on Fort William’s board, but it seems that I can happily blame the desperate board, rather than weakness in this instance. A rested body with a good base of strength is a good base to build on.

A video still of Don’t Die of Ignorance XI,11 from the Echo Wall film I’ve been editing this week.

I have three major boulder projects in the Glen for my local winter projects. A V13 and two V14s. Right now the conditions are perfect to work on these. But work is in the way. Work is always in the way.

This is something I struggle with constantly. I should do less work, but I keep doing more. Learn the word NO Dave goddammit!! The trouble is that work is too damn interesting a lot of the time. The work I did over the past two years allowed me the opportunity to have a spring and summer with much climbing on Echo Wall and to save up enough to make the purchases necessary to make a film about it. That’s pretty cool. But where do I stop? As always with work, new work creates new directions and openings. So which ones to close in order to stay focused?

Right now I am on the verge of total lack of focus and a bit of an implosion. Perhaps a symptom of having completed Echo Wall and not taken time to sit back and take some decisions about what to do next.

Anyway, enough moaning. Hugh reckons:

It’s all good. My moan is simply about the lack of hours in the day to fit in all the good things. I can honestly say I have not felt bored for a single second for at least the last eight years. But enough of being so knackered all the time I can’t enjoy all this stuff properly.

This is a wake up and smell the coffee time for me. Some stuff needs to change. First step, I’m off for some zzzzzzs.

Grammar rage!

You know what really makes my blood boil? It's not knife crime, the prospect of David Cameron being the next Prime Minister or global warming: its people who dont no how to use proper grammer and spellings.

Have a look at this list of grammar crimes and feel your own blood boil...or not.

Fewer items, less trouble

Tesco have made grammar purists everywhere jump for joy by changing their "10 items or less" signs to "Up to 10 items". But why?

According to the BBC website it's all about the difference between less and fewer.

The new wording was suggested to Tesco by language watchdog The Plain English Campaign. Tesco said the change would be phased in across its stores."Saying up to 10 items is easy to understand and avoids any debate," said a spokesman for The Plain English Campaign.

"Fewer" should be used when you are talking about items that can be counted individually, for example, "fewer than 10 apples"."Less" is correct when quantities cannot be individually counted in that case, e.g. "I would like less water".

But is this change important? Does this distinction actually matter? Everyone knows what's meant by "10 items or less". In fact, isn't "Up to 10 items" actually less clear? Does it mean up to and including 10 items or up to the point where 9 becomes 10, but no further? In fact, does it matter at all when most people actually pretend they can't count and just take 20 items?

The debate - oh yes, there's a debate about this - is followed up in comments on the Daily Telegraph's website, where you can see some very poor spelling and grammar from those who claim to be grammar experts. Tut tut...

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